Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Alexander, The Servant & The Water of Life
Reimena Yee
The 21st century retelling of the life and legends of Alexander the Great.
Star Impact
Jack McGee
A young, energetic woman fights her way up in the world of super-powered boxing after discovering the mighty gloves of her missing idol!
Monsterkind
Taylor C
Wallace Foster, a young, bright-eyed human social worker, has his entire world view rocked when he's suddenly relocated into a city primarily inhabited by monsters.
The Substitutes
Myisha Haynes
What happens when three roommates accidentally acquire otherworldly and powerful magic weapons destined for someone else?
Astral Aves
Moon Cabal
A fantasy coming-of-age following the adventures of Astra The Black and friends, as they navigate the mysterious world around them. It's politics, adventure, and the supernatural; oh, and crazy hair.
The End
August Brown, Cory Brown
Two aliens crash a sci-fi convention and accidentally take seven nerds on an adventure that spans the galaxy!
Missing Monday
Elle Skinner
Two girls fall in love through a magic door connecting their worlds. When Monday suddenly goes missing, it's up to Foyle to find her. How she's going to navigate an entirely unfamiliar world is another matter.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Kochab
Sarah Webb
A YA F/F fantasy comic about Sonya, a lost skier trying to survive a snowy wilderness and find her way back to her village; and Kyra - a fire spirit trying to fix the home that she let fall apart around her.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Alice and the Nightmare
Misha Krivanek
Alice finally attends University to learn to collect the dreams of humans, meet new friends, and deal with a pesky reflection along the way.
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Scape
Lauren
Sula has always preferred to forge her own path, but before she knows it, she is pulled into the middle of a civil war between man and monster!
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Ride or Die
Mars Heyward
Ride or Die is an LGBTQ webcomic about two street racers who team up with a demon-possessed muscle car in the search for a missing woman, while being hunted by a deadly religious cult.
How to be a Werewolf
Shawn Lenore
Malaya Walters was bitten by a werewolf as a child. After being raised by her human family, she faces the chance to learn what being a werewolf is really like as an adult.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
The Last Diplomat
Cat Farris
Samma and Tark didn't ask to be stuck together, but now they're partners on the adventure of a lifetime.
Trying Human
IntroducingEmy
Two women separated by over half a century are brought together by an alien-filled conspiracy involving murder, mystery and romance!
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Goodbye to Halos
Valerie Halla
Cuddles, gay flirting, weird feelings, and magic-fueled knife fights - it's an adventure across the queer multiverse!
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Headless Bliss
Clover
A story about story-telling, and other metaphysical themes such as Nightmares! (Failed) Teamwork! Comedy! And more!
Widdershins
Kate Ashwin
A series of light-hearted Victorian-era adventure stories featuring grumpy bounty hunters, accidental thiefkings, and more, in England's magical capital city Widdershins!
Cassiopeia Quinn
Gunwild, Psudonym
A cute, pantsless thief is pursued across the stars by a buttoned-up military officer in the spacey, laser-filled future.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
The Forgotten Order
Christy
A young witch for whom every spell is a misfire finds solace and friendship in her new companion - a cursed doll.
Quick$ilver
Crypto
The flirtatious, directionless, and ever disastrous Luci searches for excitement in a life of crime, and finds himself caught in a web of messy romance and bad blood.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Gzhel Guardian
Atla Hrafney, nushanchel
The Railway World is a complex, mysterious network of trains, towns and mechanical monsters. Leo is a Guardian of one of these towns, and although their burn-out and depression has taken hold of them, they have one last job to finish.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Within
Verena Loisel
A young hitman meanders between a reality that seems to happen without him, and his dreams where he is lost in an endless house. When he makes an accidental friend, his world is shaken up and he realizes there are things he can't remember about himself.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
This is Not Fiction
Nicole Mannino
What do you do when the person you're in-love with is an anonymous romance novelist? Get your best friend to hire your worst enemy for help!
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Love Not Found
Gina Biggs
Abeille is on a quest to find someone who wants to do it the old-fashioned way in a time when touching has become outdated.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Aquapunk
Lo
In an underwater world of unknown coordinates, inhabited by aliens, ghosts, and robots, a young member of a warrior underclass is framed for a crime and goes on the run. Little does he know he is part of a grand design that only gods and ancestors could choreograph.
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“I have teh internet! That makes me worldly and knowledgeable about everything, ESPECIALLY what I’ve never remotely personally experienced!” – too many people
I believe what you meant to say is that you are paid to maximally leverage crowdsourced solutions. Or at least, that’s what you would say in the pay equity review.
No, the ability to convincingly bullshit on demand is a highly valuable skill in almost any profession and the college courses that foster and provide practice in this ability are worth their weight.
Yes even the intro to computers.
Some of us techies took it as an easy bird course and ended up teaching the class AND the instructor assigned to teach it. She tried to give us failing grades right off the bat.
Consternation and a short walk to the Technical Programs Deans office fixed that little runaway ego right quick.
Between the three of us we covered all the shortcuts and hotkeys one actually needed to be productive in front of a computer terminal PLUS we actually knew how the damn things work so we learned how to translate what we knew into something arts/business students could understand.
Sadly the admins pulled the course from the approved list for those in the technical program thereafter.
Such fragile egos pushing personal opinion as facts to be parroted.
Google is tech support’s friend, but it feels like half the “answer” threads I find fall into three categories:
– Many replies, no closure from the OP as to which solution fixed it. No posted solutions work for me.
– OP just posts “never mind guys I fixed it” and the thread falls into obscurity.
– There’s only one reply, and it’s someone else asking for help with the same problem.
It’s even worse with some of the professional video production equipment I support. I wish there was a StackOverflow for this stuff, information is so thin on the ground.
It is the same for a number of other industries.
I find that manufacturers go out of their way to purge the net of any useful information, especially on legacy products.
I have a reputation for knowing stuff and knowing how to find out. Even people who know I often just Google it have told me I’m better at web searches than they are.
The writers were SO ANGRY at that joke. In an interview one of them said “I hated that joke so much… not because of the joke but because I didn’t write it. The funniest thing I’ve ever heard and he improv’d it”
I dunno about idle hands, but withdrawal fucking sucks and I didn’t have anywhere near as bad as Billie when I went off my seizure meds. I don’t even wanna imagine.
Yeah, mine was mostly headaches, irritableness, having a hard time sleeping, and forgetfulness (that last one’s not uncommon with the kind of medication). Not the worst thing in the world, but there were days it was not fun to live with me that year.
When I went off my migraine meds a bit too fast, I somehow thought a pain in my chest was a broken rib, and then had trouble getting to the doctor because I couldn’t make sense of the buses. Even after we slowed down the tapering it was still bizarre, and the final month was just a weird blur I didn’t clearly remember at all.
Billie is in the easy stages. Alcohol withdrawal doesn’t get bad until after hour 12. The tremors and seizures can be controlled pretty well in a professional environment. The hallucinations are where it gets weird.
Joyce can return to her happy go lucky self even after questioning the existence of god and the morality of her parents. Now she just need to respect the private space of others.
It’s not. I guess it is a joke. Caffeine withdrawal can give you a headache and make you tired for a day but that’s it. And you have to drink quite some amount of coffee or be extra sensitive to notice it.
It is probably a joke, since alcohol withdrawal can be fatal (meaning it is objectively worse), but caffeine withdrawal actually can be quite bad. And it does not necessarily require a high amount of caffeine. The length of addiction matters tooIf someone is drinking alcohol on a daily basis, always has at least some amount of alcohol in their system 24/7, that is very severe alcoholism. But for caffeine users? Quite normal. Some people have multiple cups of coffee a day, every single day, for years and years. It’s a perception thing. Very few people would view constant coffee use as a problematic behavior, while constant alcohol/drug/tobacco abuse is EASILY identified as substance abuse/addiction by the average person. People actually brag about coffee addiction! I personally own a shirt that says “Well Dressed and Coffee Obsessed” on it, though I don’t actually drink coffee – my caffeinated poison of choice is actually soda.
Depends on your consumption level. If you don’t drink much, say a cup or two of coffee or a liter of pepsi a day it will be just mild sleepiness, headache, some irritability. But if you are a heavy drinker… I once tried to quit cold turkey after consuming lots of caffeine I was having real difficulty not falling asleep and no amount of naps helped, I literally felt half-dead.
I used to drink way too much pop, like 3 Mountains Dew a day or so (internal pluralization for extra English credit). Not as bad as coffee addicts with their ridiculous amounts of the devil’s drink, but still bad. Managed to get off the habit by giving up pop entirely for Lent. Which also lowered my fast food consumption along with it, so now I don’t spend nearly as much money and can actually save quite decently. Luckily for me, I didn’t get the backlash other caffeine addicts get since caffeine never really stimulated me all that much.
I’m kind of proud of Joyce for connecting the dots. Like, it’s pretty obvious and almost spelled out, but I feel like she might not have been taught much about alcohol withdrawal even being a thing? As ultimately unhelpful as she’s being here, I find her cute in this strip.
I have never been anything more than tipsy in my life, but I feel like I’d react a lot like Billie here. (I say that even though I love and relate to Joyce a lot. Also, good on her for figuring out it’s withdrawal way quicker than I would’ve.)
The funny thing is it’s clearly the logo of the Cedar Valley Roller Derby of Waterloo, IA. No in-comic explanation. I assume Willis just liked the logo and put it in, but who knows, maybe Malaya is a huge Cedar Valley fan.
It seems to me that they would be inviting later revenge from Sarah. It strikes me that if she wanted Joyce to know her birthday, she would have told her. That probably means that she doesn’t want how Joyce would likely react to that information on the day in question!
Of course, I might be misreading Sarah. Maybe Joyce does know and is planning a surprise party about which she’s told everyone and told them to keep quiet. Of course, Joyce herself has all the subtlety of an avalanche so Sarah worked out what was going on about a week previously!
It’s also possible that Sarah told Joyce that today was her birthday, but that she doesn’t want her to do anything, as a way of heading off Joyce’s inevitable discovery of said fact and subsequent attempt to hold a surprise party. This would most likely result in Joyce trying to help other people as a way to distract from Sarah’s birthday, leading to this scene.
For her birthday, Joyce let Sarah use her as a scape goat for Halloween decor. The surprise will be Joyce throwing Sarah a “Halloween” party with balloons and cake and 7up and settlers of catan.
That’s really nice. I like the little details like the fingers digging into the shoulder, the blushes, the toes curling, the abs tensing, and the breast being lifted up. They make it seem very alive and show what’s going on without cluttering things. I can’t draw people anywhere near that well myself and mostly stick to more abstract things or landscapes with pencil, but I recognize a well done picture when I see it.
Ruth seems to be really stepping up the healthy partner-ning. Happy and in love seems to really suit her. These two are so far from the suicide pact they made! Yay, anti-depressants, going sober, and (eventual) communication!
I believe hangovers are the opposite of withdrawal. The hangover is caused by the alcohol (or – I don’t know- other stuff in the drink) being in you body, where withdrawal is caused by your body missing it.
Hangovers are mostly a complex mess of various ways the alcohol futzes with your body…not really the alcohol itself, most of which will have been metabolized by the time the hangover kicked in, but what it left behind.
Weird thing is, there’s a lot of overlap between hangovers and the less dangerous symptoms of withdrawal – irritability and anxiety, nausea and vomiting, headaches and so forth.
If I was to try to summarise the character of Joyce Brown in just a few bullet points, one of them would be: “I just want to help!” She’s not always good at it but her heart is in the right place!
I want to be annoyed, but I guess nothing about Joyce’s upbringing has taught her a deep empathy for other people and their situations. Her siblings seem to be gaining awareness about seeing other perspective es.
If she starts trembling uncontrollably at all times and seeing spiders and snakes crawling everywhere she’s in trouble. She should be fine, though, because it takes more years than she’s had time to be drinking to get to that point.
She has been drinking constantly in her developing years. I mean, this is a comic. She’s as safe as she is supposed to be. In real life, I’d really advise talking to a doctor. (it’s basically impossible to not have an insurance in my country, so the visit is covered anyway..)
It’s most common in those who have been drinking for a long time. It isn’t always only in long term drinkers though. The more and more often you do it, the more likely and worse it could be.
Yeah, cold turkey is never a good idea for anyone. Best to drink a little less than average per day and steadily decrease until down to zero. Also replace the alcohol with a healthier beverage (maybe coffee?).
Except that’s hard to do for those with a serious problem. It’s much easier to plan to do that and not really cut back at all than it is to stop entire. In therapeutic setting where someone else can dole out the alcohol to you, that’s more likely to work. If you’re the type who’s just going to have one drink and winds up finishing the bottle, not so much.
It’s likely better for the physical withdrawal, but not so much for the psychological addiction.
Those are a pain to find in every one of the States I’ve ever been in.
Pretty ubiquitous over in Germany, by my experiences, however.
That’s not to say you can’t order them online (to mixed results), just that it’s unlikely Joyce’d have one on-hand or be able to find one easily in stores.
But then, I don’t know anything about Indiana, so perhaps it’s different up there. Google results don’t seem to indicate such, though.
[Mind you, if you’ve had contrary experiences anywhere in the US, I’m interested in hearing about them. ^.^]
To be clear: Not saying you *can’t* find them in stores *at all*, just that they’re rather uncommon, and most people’d be hard-pressed to know off-hand which stores do carry them.
How does Joyce even know that withdrawal is a thing? Not really what you’d expect out of an over-sheltered freshman with a strict Protestant upbringing.
A. Strict Protestants need to know what happens when someone quits alcohol works so they can successfully help other people do it.
B. withdrawal can be a good scare tactic; you either don’t stop drinking and die or you do stop drinking and suffer. So just don’t drink ever.
I never went through alcohol withdrawal, but I have helped friends who have, and Joyce left out the body and muscle aches. I don’t know if it’s a common symptom, or if all my friends were drinking because they had chronic pain from injuries, or if they got those injuries because they were half-drunk, but all of the people I helped through withdrawal had body and muscle pain as a symptom.
Granted 3 people is not a large enough sample group to draw statistical conclusions.
And FYI the 18th anniversary of my death is in 9 days.
it would be funny if they released it but it was just a cinema painted on the side of a cliff
DiscussingFilm@discussingfilm.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
‘COYOTE VS ACME’ has been officially saved by Ketchup Entertainment, who bought the film for $50M
They plan to give the film a worldwide theatrical release in 2026.
do y'all remember when they found all that tf art in Osamu Tezuka's drawer post-mortem because I think about it often
anyway keep chasing your bliss and draw weird shit, god knows we need that right now
Today in #9ChickweedLane I learned that I have to weigh which is worse: the cartoonist already forgetting what this guy looks like one daily strip later, or that, yes, he's actually meant to be an old man, not a victim to an older cartoonist forgetting what young people look like
Like any average American, I’m for universal basic income and abolishing the police. I can’t get on board with these ultra-leftists calling for the universal hive mind, though!
maura quint@mauraquint.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
going to start calling myself a centrist and then listing all my leftist views as proof, just going to start moving the overton window by force
I've spent the past few days reading through the entire archive of @damnyouwillis.bsky.social's Dumbing of Age and this has been stuck in my head for about 90% of that time.
Steve Williams @skillagesteve.bsky.social ⋅ 16h
DiscussingFilm @discussingfilm.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
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Comms Open
“I have teh internet! That makes me worldly and knowledgeable about everything, ESPECIALLY what I’ve never remotely personally experienced!” – too many people
Every dude who hears someone has a problem—”Ah, yes, I will solve this for you with my unique expertise. *Runs to Google*”
I work in IT and am literally paid to google stuff half the time.
The other half is StackOverflow.
I believe what you meant to say is that you are paid to maximally leverage crowdsourced solutions. Or at least, that’s what you would say in the pay equity review.
You’re right. Google and SA make up only a combined 95% of what I do.
The other 5% is bullshit.
…. but you can google bullshit.
No, the ability to convincingly bullshit on demand is a highly valuable skill in almost any profession and the college courses that foster and provide practice in this ability are worth their weight.
But add to that a modicum of Google-fu and the ability to pick up things on the fly and you’ll go far in life.
Computer Science grad, here. All my classes taught the opposite. Which classes teach how to bullshit on demand? It does sound useful.
Any class with essay questions on the test.
So, my degree in maths wasn’t useful for teaching me how to bullshit on demand then? That figures. xD
Pretty much all under the Humanities Banner.
Yes even the intro to computers.
Some of us techies took it as an easy bird course and ended up teaching the class AND the instructor assigned to teach it. She tried to give us failing grades right off the bat.
Consternation and a short walk to the Technical Programs Deans office fixed that little runaway ego right quick.
Between the three of us we covered all the shortcuts and hotkeys one actually needed to be productive in front of a computer terminal PLUS we actually knew how the damn things work so we learned how to translate what we knew into something arts/business students could understand.
Sadly the admins pulled the course from the approved list for those in the technical program thereafter.
Such fragile egos pushing personal opinion as facts to be parroted.
Bunch of fertilizer websites.
Google is tech support’s friend, but it feels like half the “answer” threads I find fall into three categories:
– Many replies, no closure from the OP as to which solution fixed it. No posted solutions work for me.
– OP just posts “never mind guys I fixed it” and the thread falls into obscurity.
– There’s only one reply, and it’s someone else asking for help with the same problem.
It’s even worse with some of the professional video production equipment I support. I wish there was a StackOverflow for this stuff, information is so thin on the ground.
https://xkcd.com/979/
It is the same for a number of other industries.
I find that manufacturers go out of their way to purge the net of any useful information, especially on legacy products.
I have a reputation for knowing stuff and knowing how to find out. Even people who know I often just Google it have told me I’m better at web searches than they are.
New Nickelodeon reboot: “Joyce Googlesplains It All.”
Being able to use the internet to quickly learn things, or at least confirm things you’re unsure of, is a useful skill that not everybody has.
Billy probably didn’t need Joyce’s help with it, though.
Leslie, I typed your symptoms into the thing up here and it says you could have network connectivity problems.
The writers were SO ANGRY at that joke. In an interview one of them said “I hated that joke so much… not because of the joke but because I didn’t write it. The funniest thing I’ve ever heard and he improv’d it”
And I think another cultural reference just went over my head.
Join the club. I hardly get any of them.
It’s from an episode of Parks and Recreation.
I’ll use my context clues to divine that’s stupid TV bullshit.
You need to calm down dude
yikes
https://youtu.be/LinpRhB4aWU?t=20 What they are referencing!
Thank you and Needfuldoer
Billie’s not so ill she can’t make a fist.
She’s still got a ways to go to catch up to Ruth, who threw an evil dad while in alcohol withdrawal.
Not yet anyway
Joyce. Not. Helping.
She’s training for her future career as an Alexa.
*plays “You Be Illin'” on the hacked Muzak*
boundaries
“Thing that Joyce does not acknowledge”
If she sticks with math she’ll have to eventually.
That’s not a good way to learn about boundaries because its not a good idea to get as close as humanly possible without touching someones boundaries.
Everyone should know their limits.
Okay, Joyce. Think of Billie’s personal space as a steak, and you as mashed potatoes.
Withdrawal symptoms, at least this means she is actually trying this time.
I said it before and I’ll say it again – withdrawal is the devil’s work.
Idle hands go into withdrawal?
I dunno about idle hands, but withdrawal fucking sucks and I didn’t have anywhere near as bad as Billie when I went off my seizure meds. I don’t even wanna imagine.
D: I’m glad it wasn’t as bad as Billie’s at least?
Yeah, mine was mostly headaches, irritableness, having a hard time sleeping, and forgetfulness (that last one’s not uncommon with the kind of medication). Not the worst thing in the world, but there were days it was not fun to live with me that year.
When I went off my migraine meds a bit too fast, I somehow thought a pain in my chest was a broken rib, and then had trouble getting to the doctor because I couldn’t make sense of the buses. Even after we slowed down the tapering it was still bizarre, and the final month was just a weird blur I didn’t clearly remember at all.
That sucks. Can med withdrawals just fucking not?
Billie is in the easy stages. Alcohol withdrawal doesn’t get bad until after hour 12. The tremors and seizures can be controlled pretty well in a professional environment. The hallucinations are where it gets weird.
Joyce can return to her happy go lucky self even after questioning the existence of god and the morality of her parents. Now she just need to respect the private space of others.
Yeah. Baby steps.
I’ve been here before, Billie. Not a good idea to quit alcohol cold turkey.
Still, not as bad as quitting coffee.
Certainly not without a doctor supervising, it’s not.
Is caffeine withdrawl crazy bad?
Severe headaches and irritability. More I don’t know.
It’s not. I guess it is a joke. Caffeine withdrawal can give you a headache and make you tired for a day but that’s it. And you have to drink quite some amount of coffee or be extra sensitive to notice it.
Your coffee genes must be way stronger than mine, if your withdrawals only last a day.
It is probably a joke, since alcohol withdrawal can be fatal (meaning it is objectively worse), but caffeine withdrawal actually can be quite bad. And it does not necessarily require a high amount of caffeine. The length of addiction matters tooIf someone is drinking alcohol on a daily basis, always has at least some amount of alcohol in their system 24/7, that is very severe alcoholism. But for caffeine users? Quite normal. Some people have multiple cups of coffee a day, every single day, for years and years. It’s a perception thing. Very few people would view constant coffee use as a problematic behavior, while constant alcohol/drug/tobacco abuse is EASILY identified as substance abuse/addiction by the average person. People actually brag about coffee addiction! I personally own a shirt that says “Well Dressed and Coffee Obsessed” on it, though I don’t actually drink coffee – my caffeinated poison of choice is actually soda.
Depends on your consumption level. If you don’t drink much, say a cup or two of coffee or a liter of pepsi a day it will be just mild sleepiness, headache, some irritability. But if you are a heavy drinker… I once tried to quit cold turkey after consuming lots of caffeine I was having real difficulty not falling asleep and no amount of naps helped, I literally felt half-dead.
I used to drink way too much pop, like 3 Mountains Dew a day or so (internal pluralization for extra English credit). Not as bad as coffee addicts with their ridiculous amounts of the devil’s drink, but still bad. Managed to get off the habit by giving up pop entirely for Lent. Which also lowered my fast food consumption along with it, so now I don’t spend nearly as much money and can actually save quite decently. Luckily for me, I didn’t get the backlash other caffeine addicts get since caffeine never really stimulated me all that much.
Yeah, Billie is not in for a fun day. This is gonna suck.
At least Joyce and Ruth are trying to help.
Several days, at least.
Sure, but it’s gonna start with this being a not fun day.
ThJoyce should change her major to nursing. I think it would suit her.
Would suit her instincts. And give her some training so her attempts to help might even be useful.
I’m kind of proud of Joyce for connecting the dots. Like, it’s pretty obvious and almost spelled out, but I feel like she might not have been taught much about alcohol withdrawal even being a thing? As ultimately unhelpful as she’s being here, I find her cute in this strip.
I have never been anything more than tipsy in my life, but I feel like I’d react a lot like Billie here. (I say that even though I love and relate to Joyce a lot. Also, good on her for figuring out it’s withdrawal way quicker than I would’ve.)
What is that thing on top of Ruth’s head in the third panel? I’m assuming it’s a door decoration but I can’t be sure.
It’s a roller derby logo sticker on the door of Malaya’s and Sal’s room. You can see it clearly here.
The funny thing is it’s clearly the logo of the Cedar Valley Roller Derby of Waterloo, IA. No in-comic explanation. I assume Willis just liked the logo and put it in, but who knows, maybe Malaya is a huge Cedar Valley fan.
Also, at the top right of the first panel, you can see another sticker on the door with the logo of Bloomington’s own Bleeding Heartland Roller Derby.
“DID SOMEONE SAY TOO SUNNY?????”
At least Joyce isn’t Sola Flare.
*Taiyouken, ahckschewally.
That’s Yamcha’s move!
PRAISE THE SUN!
It’s always sunny in Joyce’s world (except on recent Sunday mornings, and that day she smashed her toe, and the other weekend when she visited home…)
And the day she smashed Becky’s toe
Gah! Someone turn that smile down, it’s too early in the morning for that brightness.
Quick, Ruth and Billie – distract Joyce with Sarah’s birthday!
Poor Sarah
It seems to me that they would be inviting later revenge from Sarah. It strikes me that if she wanted Joyce to know her birthday, she would have told her. That probably means that she doesn’t want how Joyce would likely react to that information on the day in question!
Of course, I might be misreading Sarah. Maybe Joyce does know and is planning a surprise party about which she’s told everyone and told them to keep quiet. Of course, Joyce herself has all the subtlety of an avalanche so Sarah worked out what was going on about a week previously!
It’s also possible that Sarah told Joyce that today was her birthday, but that she doesn’t want her to do anything, as a way of heading off Joyce’s inevitable discovery of said fact and subsequent attempt to hold a surprise party. This would most likely result in Joyce trying to help other people as a way to distract from Sarah’s birthday, leading to this scene.
For her birthday, Joyce let Sarah use her as a scape goat for Halloween decor. The surprise will be Joyce throwing Sarah a “Halloween” party with balloons and cake and 7up and settlers of catan.
Got a comm for sexy time with Sierra and Guns. Anyone wanna see?
… I mean, sure. Why not, right?
I’m hoping my love of Sierra will outweigh my apathy for Guns.
And outweight the stoic backdrop
Here you go.
Oops that was the thumbnail
Indeed, quite nice. Saved to my David Willis Related porn folder.
I’m not sure I’d call the backdrop stoic so much as non-existent, though.
That’s really nice. I like the little details like the fingers digging into the shoulder, the blushes, the toes curling, the abs tensing, and the breast being lifted up. They make it seem very alive and show what’s going on without cluttering things. I can’t draw people anywhere near that well myself and mostly stick to more abstract things or landscapes with pencil, but I recognize a well done picture when I see it.
Oh… um…
I…
I notice there is no strategically-placed Dr. Pepper
I’ll be in my bunk.
Joyce’s trolling game is coming along nicely
Ruth seems to be really stepping up the healthy partner-ning. Happy and in love seems to really suit her. These two are so far from the suicide pact they made! Yay, anti-depressants, going sober, and (eventual) communication!
Ruth used the P word!
. . . I actually forgot that Alcohol withdrawal was an a thing. Like outside of days long hangovers.
I believe hangovers are the opposite of withdrawal. The hangover is caused by the alcohol (or – I don’t know- other stuff in the drink) being in you body, where withdrawal is caused by your body missing it.
Hope I did the tags right this timemmm
Hangovers are mostly a complex mess of various ways the alcohol futzes with your body…not really the alcohol itself, most of which will have been metabolized by the time the hangover kicked in, but what it left behind.
Weird thing is, there’s a lot of overlap between hangovers and the less dangerous symptoms of withdrawal – irritability and anxiety, nausea and vomiting, headaches and so forth.
And a little hair of the dog that bit you fixes both right up.
So if you just stay a little drunk at all times, you’ll be just fine!
(You will not be fine.)
“It’s worked so far” /Billie
If I was to try to summarise the character of Joyce Brown in just a few bullet points, one of them would be: “I just want to help!” She’s not always good at it but her heart is in the right place!
“Too sunny” might find a place on the list as well.
Cover your face, Joyce.
That could be a book title. “I Can Help!” Followed by a series of comics wherein Joyce does not actually help.
I want to be annoyed, but I guess nothing about Joyce’s upbringing has taught her a deep empathy for other people and their situations. Her siblings seem to be gaining awareness about seeing other perspective es.
I think that Joyce’s sense of empathy is just fine. It’s just that her upbringing has taught her all the wrong responses to her empathetic feelings.
Joyce is probably the most empathetic of anyone on the main cast. Which really doesn’t help when combined with her general naivety.
Okay but is quitting cold turkey safe for Billie? She seemed to be a pretty heavy drinker and just quitting alcohol like that may mess her up…
Or kill her. No, it’s not safe.
If she starts trembling uncontrollably at all times and seeing spiders and snakes crawling everywhere she’s in trouble. She should be fine, though, because it takes more years than she’s had time to be drinking to get to that point.
She has been drinking constantly in her developing years. I mean, this is a comic. She’s as safe as she is supposed to be. In real life, I’d really advise talking to a doctor. (it’s basically impossible to not have an insurance in my country, so the visit is covered anyway..)
It’s most common in those who have been drinking for a long time. It isn’t always only in long term drinkers though. The more and more often you do it, the more likely and worse it could be.
Yeah, cold turkey is never a good idea for anyone. Best to drink a little less than average per day and steadily decrease until down to zero. Also replace the alcohol with a healthier beverage (maybe coffee?).
Except that’s hard to do for those with a serious problem. It’s much easier to plan to do that and not really cut back at all than it is to stop entire. In therapeutic setting where someone else can dole out the alcohol to you, that’s more likely to work. If you’re the type who’s just going to have one drink and winds up finishing the bottle, not so much.
It’s likely better for the physical withdrawal, but not so much for the psychological addiction.
It might be possible if you have a friend you can trust and who is willing to do slightly illegal things for you.
Joyce. in cases like these a true friend would offer herself for be punched.
Or at least hold her hair out of the way whilst she vomits and then get a hot water bottle for her stomach.
Those are a pain to find in every one of the States I’ve ever been in.
Pretty ubiquitous over in Germany, by my experiences, however.
That’s not to say you can’t order them online (to mixed results), just that it’s unlikely Joyce’d have one on-hand or be able to find one easily in stores.
But then, I don’t know anything about Indiana, so perhaps it’s different up there. Google results don’t seem to indicate such, though.
[Mind you, if you’ve had contrary experiences anywhere in the US, I’m interested in hearing about them. ^.^]
To be clear: Not saying you *can’t* find them in stores *at all*, just that they’re rather uncommon, and most people’d be hard-pressed to know off-hand which stores do carry them.
At least, don’t bother people with headaches.
Thanks. Now I have “alcohol withdrawal” in my browser history.
I may be too Joyce, because her last response is exactly what I was thinking.
How does Joyce even know that withdrawal is a thing? Not really what you’d expect out of an over-sheltered freshman with a strict Protestant upbringing.
Alcoholism is a ‘godpertunity’ remember?
Maybe through Jordan?
A. Strict Protestants need to know what happens when someone quits alcohol works so they can successfully help other people do it.
B. withdrawal can be a good scare tactic; you either don’t stop drinking and die or you do stop drinking and suffer. So just don’t drink ever.
Thank you guys I genuinely appreciate these answers
I think that the most important lesson from this strip is the fact that Joyce really has no ability to detect sarcasm worth mentioning.
At least Joyce is aware that she can be agitating. Agitative? I dunno im only abour 2/3s done with my English degree, dont expect me to know this crap
I never went through alcohol withdrawal, but I have helped friends who have, and Joyce left out the body and muscle aches. I don’t know if it’s a common symptom, or if all my friends were drinking because they had chronic pain from injuries, or if they got those injuries because they were half-drunk, but all of the people I helped through withdrawal had body and muscle pain as a symptom.
Granted 3 people is not a large enough sample group to draw statistical conclusions.
And FYI the 18th anniversary of my death is in 9 days.
I’m glad you got better.
You did get better?
Come to think about it irritability is seems like it should be covered under the other side effects.